On the biological and cultural evolution of shame: Using internet search

tools to weight values in many cultures

Klaus Jaffe, Astrid Flórez, Cristina M Gomes, Daniel Rodríguez, Carla Achury

Laboratorio de Evolución, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Caracas, Venezuela

Abstract: Shame has clear biological roots and its precise form of expression affects

social cohesion and cultural characteristics. Here we explore the relative importance

between shame and guilt by using Google Translate to produce translation for the words

shame, guilt, pain, embarrassment and fear to the 64 languages covered. We also

explore the meanings of these concepts among the Yanomami, a horticulturist hunter-

gatherer tribe in the Orinoquia. Results show that societies previously described as

“guilt societies” have more words for guilt than for shame, but the large majority,

including the societies previously described as “shame societies”, have more words for

shame than for guilt. Results are consistent with evolutionary models of shame which

predict a wide scatter in the relative importance between guilt and shame, suggesting

that cultural evolution of shame has continued the work of biological evolution, and that

neither provides a strong adaptive advantage to either shame or guilt. We propose that

the study of shame will improve our understanding of the interaction between biological

and cultural evolution in the evolution of cognition and emotions.

Key words: Shame, guilt, evolution, society, biological, cultural

Sobre la evolución biológica y cultural de la vergüenza: El uso de herramientas de

búsqueda en Internet para una valoración relativa de estos conceptos en múltiples

culturas

Resumen: La vergüenza tiene claramente raíces biológicas y su forma concreta de

expresión afecta a la cohesión social y otras características culturales. Aquí se explora la

importancia relativa entre los conceptos “vergüenza” y “culpa” mediante el uso de

Google Translate para buscar sinónimos de la palabra vergüenza, culpa, dolor y miedo en

64 idiomas. También exploramos los significados de estos conceptos entre los

yanomami, una tribu de cazadores-recolectores en la Orinoquia. Los resultados

muestran que las sociedades anteriormente descritas como "sociedades de culpa"

tienen más palabras para la culpa que para la vergüenza, pero la gran mayoría,

incluyendo las sociedades anteriormente descritas como "sociedades de vergüenza",

tienen más palabras para la vergüenza que para la culpa. Los resultados son congruentes

con modelos evolutivos de la vergüenza que predicen una gran varianza en la

importancia relativa entre la culpa y la vergüenza en diferentes culturas; y sugieren que

la evolución cultural de la vergüenza ha continuado el trabajo de la evolución biológica,

basado en las ventajas adaptativas relativas de los sentimientos de vergüenza y culpa. Se

identifica al estudio del sentimiento o emoción de la vergüenza como un modelo

adecuado para comprender la interacción entre la evolución biológica y cultural de

aspectos cognitivos y emocionales de nuestra conducta.

Palabras clave: Vergüenza, culpa, evolución, sociedad, cultura, biológica, adecuación

Introduction

Psychologists base their research on proving theories. In natural sciences, when

very little is known about the subject of study, exploratory research is preferred. As

knowledge about the evolutionary origin of shame and guilt is very poor, we decided to

explore some basic assumption about the existence of adaptive forces, be they

biological or cultural in origin, which might have selected for a balance between the

feelings of shame and guilt.

The emotion of shame:

Shame has been related to emotions and cognition and extensively studied in

different contexts (11, 25, for example). The roots of the word shame are thought to

derive from an older word meaning "to cover". The emotion of shame has clear

physiological consequences. Its facial and corporal expression is a human universal, as

was recognized already by Darwin (5). Looking away, reddening of the face, sinking the

head, obstructing direct view, hiding the face and downing the eyelids, are the

unequivocal expressions signaling shame. Shame might be an emotion specific to

humans, as no clear description of it is known for animals. Behaviors in animals that

share some aspects of shame include submission, both in interactions between adult-

offspring and in other social contexts, and cryptic expressions of fear that are an attempt

to hide when in presence of stronger rivals or potential predators. On the other hand,

shame has been postulated as a cement of human societies upon which they can build

and expand. Classical Greek philosophers, such as Aristotle, explicitly mention shame as

a key element in building society.

Guilt is the emotion of being responsible for the commission of an offense,

however, it seems to be distinct from shame. Guilt says “what I did was not good”,

whereas shame says “I am no good" (2). For Benedict (1), shame is a violation of cultural

or social values, while guilt feelings arise from violations of one's internal values. As

proposed by Wikipedia, reflecting more popular notions of these concepts, “in a shame

society the primary device for gaining control over children and maintaining social order

is the inculcation of shame and the complementary threat of ostracism”. In contrast, in

guilt societies control is maintained by creating and continually reinforcing the feeling of

guilt (and the expectation of punishment now or in the hereafter) for certain

condemned behaviors (1,7,9). Cultural differences between shame and guilt show both a

high degree of universality of differential emotion patterning, and important cultural

differences in emotion elicitation, regulation, symbolic representation, and social sharing

(38). Shame and guilt have often been used as a classifier for cultures.

The emotion of shame has suffered both biological and cultural evolution.

Although the mechanisms upon which both types of evolution are based on differ

widely, its dynamics seem to be very similar (23, 30). A deeper understanding of shame

can serve as an empirical test of the relation between cultural and biological evolution.

Cultural evolution could continue the work of biological evolution, if the adaptive

advantages of shame are maintained over time; or both types of evolution might drive

the behavioral-cultural system to different outcomes, if the adaptive advantages of

shame differ in different cultures.

The biological view of shame:

Ethologically, shame is related to unconscious physiological reactions and

therefore can be viewed as an honest signal regulating social interactions, where the

benefits to society is the identification of trustworthy individuals and the benefit to the

individual is reducing or avoiding social punishment when transgressing a social norm.

The uncontrollable trigger of shame signals makes it an honest signal trait which serves

to regulate compliance with social norms. In economy, reliable “public information” has

to be readily apparent, which seems to be the case for shame. Unobservable emotions

such as guilt may be of value to the receiver but constitutes in economy “private

information”. Thus, in economic and biological terms, adaptive pressures acting upon

the evolution of shame differ from those acting on that of guilt.

Shame has evolutionary advantages to both individual and society, but the lack of

shame also has evolutionary advantages as it allows cheating and thus benefiting from

public goods without paying the costs of its build up. These divergent adaptive forces

have an interesting effect on the evolutionary dynamics of shame. Computer simulations

of virtual societies formed by agents who can cooperate synergistically, mutualistically or

egoistically showed that genes or memes coding for shame will always evolve and

eventually displace genes or memes coding for shamelessness, but the opposite will also

happen. The outcome of computer simulations is a dynamic unstable equilibrium

between both strategies, producing as a result chaotic-like dynamics with spells of stable

shameful populations followed by spells of shameless populations (21). These results

thus predict variable levels of shame among distinct populations.

If the adaptive forces leading humans to evolve a common expression of shame

are the same as those favoring shame in contemporary human societies, we should

expect that all human populations will possess genes allowing for emotions and elicitors

of shame but express them in different ways. If guilt is also a universal emotion, the

equilibrium between the emotions of guilt and shame, should vary, irrespective of the

possibility that guilt alone is an evolutionary stable or unstable emotion. If the

simulations just mentioned, however, do not reflect reality, other outcomes are possible.

Adaptation seems to have selected for intermediate levels of shame among

humans. Excess of shame has been associated to pathologies. For example, high levels of

shame are linked to mental illness in the USA (10,28, 37, 42) and to physiological stress

(6, 13, 32). On the other hand, a deficit of shame also relates to pathological states, as

shameless individuals are prone to suffer psychopathic syndromes (3, 18, 33).

Shame in different cultures:

Dodds (7) coined the distinction between guilt and shame cultures and

postulated that in Greek cultural history, shame as a social value was displaced, at least

in part, by guilt in guiding moral behavior. Hiebert (15) differentiates between guilt and

shame societies as follows: “Guilt is a feeling that arises when we violate the absolute

standards of morality within us, when we violate our conscience. A person may suffer from guilt

although no one else knows of his or her misdeed; this feeling of guilt is relieved by confessing

the misdeed and making restitution. True guilt cultures rely on an internalized conviction of sin as

the enforcer of good behavior, not, as shame cultures do, on external sanctions. Guilt cultures

emphasize punishment and forgiveness as ways of restoring the moral order; shame cultures

stress self-denial and humility as ways of restoring the social order”. Thus, two distinct cultures

seem to exist based on distinct emphasis or importance of the relation between guilt

and shame.

In their extensive review of cultural models of shame and guilt, Wong and Tsai

(45) make an important effort to incorporate the available empirical findings to the

discussion of the cultural relevance of shame and guilt. They propose an individualistic

and a collectivistic model of shame and guilt, where the valuation, elicitors and

behavioral consequences, as well as the distinction between shame and guilt, vary

systematically across individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Their review includes a

relatively small group of cultures and they convincingly argue for the need of further

cross cultural research.

Cross cultural studies of emotions have been reviewed before (4, 16, 26, 27, 36,

40, 41, 43, 45), but do not focus on shame and will not be discussed further here.

Using crowd-sourcing and automated search techniques in scientific research

Comparing anthropological and linguistic studies of different cultures introduces

an important amount of variations not related to the cultural differences, but depend on

the focus, motivation and professional experience of the diverse researchers, Thus,

these studies are not appropriate for our aim here. The anthropological and social

studies we found are limited to a few social groups or cultures. A broad study covering a

large amount of different cultures is required for our aims here. Therefore, we used an

approach, based on automatic algorithms which minimize subjective criteria, that allows

covering a large number of cultures and thus enables us to make broad inter-cultural

comparisons. Thanks to the fast advance of information technology, such approaches

are now possible. That is, we used the same method with the same errors to analyze

with minimal effort a large set of different languages to explore conceptual relationships

between shame and guilt and some related concepts. By studying the number of words

used for shame, guilt, embarrassment, pain and fear, and in some cases the contexts in

which these are used, we aim at gaining insight into the universality of the relationship

between shame and guilt, and obtain a crude estimate of its relative importance as

assed through the subtle variations in describing these feelings in each culture.

Many scholars avoid using Wikipedia or Google search tools as they consider

them not to be scientifically validated and recognized methods. We believe that these

modern tools have many benefits over traditional one. They are cheap to use, easily

replicable, cover a very broad area of search space and are at least as reliable as

traditional research methods. For example, Wikipedia is less error prone than

Encyclopedia Britannica (12, 17); and Google Translate is as accurate as more traditional

methods (35). Here we use Google translate as a research tool, as it provides the

broadest access to concepts in the largest number of languages available using the same

algorithm. This does not imply that our method might commit other types of errors, but

the contrast of different research efforts allows to advance science.

Methods

We wanted to assess the relative importance of the concept shame and guilt in

different cultures. This can be done by counting the number of synonyms of each

concept in each language and assuming that cultures that have developed more

synonyms for a concept have dedicated more attention to it and thus are likely to give it

more importance than other concept which have fewer or no synonyms. For example

Inuit’s use dozen of words for snow whereas Yanomami have none. This difference

clearly reflects the relative importance of snow in each culture. Inuit’s contact snow

nearly all year long whereas Yanomami never see it. Using “Google Translate” we

translated and noted the synonyms of the English words: shame, guilt, pain,

embarrassment and fear to the 64 languages covered (Table 1). For the data on English,

Yanomami and Sanema, we translated from the Spanish words: vergüenza, culpa, dolor,

pena and miedo. Google Translate, has an uneven coverage of the languages reported.

For each language, however, it is likely to have similar coverage of the concepts studied.

Thus, any difference in coverage of a language less likely to affect the ratio of synonyms

of two related concepts. But important errors have been detected. For example Czech

and Slovak languages showed large differences in the number of terms for guilt and

shame (1 & 3 for Czech and 5 & 9 for Slovak) given that the two languages are very

closely related (Štěpán Bahník personal communication). The ratio between the

numbers, however, showed less variation (0.3 and 0.5). This error is somehow captured

by the 95% standard error interval in Figure 2, where Slovak is positioned below the

upper 95% limit. Google translate produces more erroneous data. For example it

reports a word in Slovak to describe indistinctly shame and pain; this is not true as the

word otrava means either poisoning, nuisance or boredom. Correcting this error in the

figure, changing the color of Slk, improves the picture but more errors with other

languages are to be expected. Thus, the analysis performed here will have to be

repeated in the future when better data will become available.

Data for the Sanema, an indigenous horticulturist group belonging to the

cultural-ethnic complex of the Yanomami (31), was collected in communities located on

the banks of the Caura River, Bolivar State, Venezuela, during 2012. With the help of

native Spanish-Sanema translators, we interviewed 16 Sanema people, members of the

Ikutu community. We asked them questions regarding words used in different contexts

and contexts in which different words are used. Thus, we were able to determine which

words are commonly used in contexts usually related to shame, guilt, pain,

embarrassment and fear. For Yanomami we used the Spanish-Yanomami dictionary by

Marie Claude Mattei-Muller (31).

Results

Results presented in Figure 1 show that all 64 languages studied have at least one

concept related to Shame and one to Guilt and most languages have more words for

Shame than for Guilt. In Figure 1, languages which have at least one word which

describes indistinctly shame and embarrassment are indicated in red. The total list

includes Arabic, Azerbaijani, Catalan, Croatian, Filipino, French, Irish, Macedonian,

Malay, Persian, Swahili, Turkish, Slovak, and Spanish. Slovak has a word to describe

indistinctly shame and pain; and Yanomami and Sanema use the same word for shame,

embarrassment and fear.

The line in Figure 2 represents the regression with its 95% confidence interval.

This regression is close to a proportional line of two words for shame for each word for

guilt. Dots below the line indicate languages where more words than the 2/1 proportion

are used for shame than for guilt. Interestingly, dots in red (i.e. languages which confuse

shame with another concept) are found only below the upper 95% confidence limit of

this regression line.

As deduced from Figure 1, 49 languages have clear linguistic separation between

Shame and the four concepts explored (Guilt, Pain, Embarrassment, Fear); 14 languages

confuse Embarrassment with Shame. Yanomami has a diffuse relationship between

shame, embarrassment and fear. The linguistic separation is especially conspicuous in

languages with many words for shame and guilt, such as Hebrew, Latin and Bengali.

We might underestimate the overlap of the meaning of words. For example, in

the case of Chinese, no overlap between the five concepts is reported using Google

Translate in Figure 1. Yet, linguistic-conceptual studies of guilt and shame revealed an

important overlap between several of these concepts in Chinese (29). The authors

found, at the highest abstract level, two large distinctions of “shame state, self-focus”

and “reactions to shame, other-focus.” While the former describes various aspects of

actual shame experience that focuses on the self, the latter focuses on consequences of

and reactions to shame directed at others. Shame state with self-focus contained three

further sets of meanings: 1- one’s fear of losing face, 2- the feeling state after one’s face

has been lost, and 3- guilt. Reactions to shame with other-focus also consisted of three

further sets of subcomponents at the same level: 4- disgrace, 5- shamelessness and its

condemnation, and 6- embarrassment. Except for guilt, there were several sub-clusters

under each of these categories.

Our results using Google Translate show no overlap between Guilt and Shame in

any of the languages studied. This is interesting in the light of the distinction made

previously between Shame and Guilt societies by Wong & Tsai (45). Although some

cultures are multi-linguistic it is not difficult to match the languages analyzed with the

societies reported by Wong & Tsai (45). There seems to be a significant overlap between

both ways of measuring the shame-guilt dimension. All societies that had been reported

as “guilt societies” speak languages that have more words for guilt as that predicted by

the regression in Figure 2 (i.e. less than 2 synonyms for shame for each synonym of

guilt), i.e. Anglo-Saxon western societies; whereas the “shame societies”, reported in the

literature (16, 19, 39): Japan, Persia, Arabs and China, use languages with two or more

words for shame than for each synonym for guilt.

Yanomami is very different from other languages in not having clear divisions

between several of the concepts studied. Yanomami´s are a very distinct amerindian

hunter-gather community in the Orinoco-Amazon basin of Brazil and Venezuela, and

differ from other amerindians and western cultures in that they spend more time in

communal relationships so that they are focused more on society than on the individual

(8). Their knowledge of nature is more restricted than that of other communities living

in the same area (14, 24). Yanomami is the only language that uses the same word to

refer to shame, pain, fear, guilt and embarrassment. We thus, studied in more depth the

concept of shame among Sanema or Sanöma, one of the four dialects of Yanomami. The

word most Sanema related to shame was “kili”. Examples of the context when they feel

“kili” are: a tiger appears in the forest; you kill somebody from another community; your

daughter is going to die; everybody looks at your underwear; you are caught stealing;

you soil your pants while among others; a doctor gives you an injection; you hit your

wife and others find out; you are unfaithful to your husband and others find out; you are

going to be hit with a machete.

Linguistic families do not aggregate according to the relationship of the number

of synonyms for shame and guilt (Figure 3). For example, Latin languages (Latin, Spanish,

Romanian, Italian, French, Portuguese) differ widely in their relative importance

between guilt and shame and appear scattered over all area in Figure 3. Similarly,

Hebrew and Yiddish; or Korean, Japanese and Chinese; which share important aspects of

written language; etc. are separated by the principal component analysis in Figure 3. The

linguistic families examined did not cluster according to the relative importance they

give to shame and guilt.

Testing for a general validity of Dodds proposition that older shame-cultures may

evolve towards guilt-cultures, as shown in Greek literature, we compared the ratios of

the number of synonyms for shame and guilt in Latin with Italian. The ratios are 0.89 and

2.5 respectively, meaning a historical transition from guilt-culture in Latin to shame-

culture in Italian, suggesting a historical development that is inverse to that suggested by

Dodds for ancient to classical Greek.

Languages with extreme Shame/Guilt ratios in relative number of synonyms (S/G)

are: S/G < 1 English, Hungarian, Telugu, Bengali, Latin; S/G > 3 Hebrew, Italian, Korean,

Yiddish, Spanish, Lithuanian.

Discussion

Our study supports the use of Google Translates to compare the relative “importance” of

different concepts in different cultures. Here we showed that all the 64 languages

examined, have a unambiguous word for shame and guilt and sharply distinguish

between them. This finding is in agreement with the view that there is a high degree of

universality in the different emotional patterning and in the cultural differences in

emotional elicitation of shame and guilt (38). This universality, however, does not

preclude divergence in the importance of shame in different societies. The diversity of

linguistic usage for shame and guilt also suggests that the cultural evolution of shame

has continued the work of biological evolution. Our results showed a wide scatter in the

relative importance or dept of naming subtle differences between guilt and shame, as

estimated by quantifying the number of synonyms produced by Google Translate of each

concept in each language. Despite this scatter, and independent of language families, all

societies or cultures that had been referred to as “shame societies” in the literature had

high scores on relative frequency of words for shame/guilt, whereas those referred to as

“guilt societies” had a low score in this relationship. The present study provides for

testable predictions as it suggests which society should be closer to a “guilt” or “shame

society”, based on their language, which can be confirmed or negated with further

anthropological or cultural studies. For example, Hungarian, Telugu, Bengali, Latin should

be spoken in “guilt” societies; whereas Hebrew, Italian, Korean, Yiddish, Spanish and

Lithuanian should be spoken in “shame societies”.

Results are consistent with evolutionary models of shame which predict a wide

scatter in the relative importance between guilt and shame. Neither biological nor

cultural evolution provides a strong adaptive advantage to either shame or guilt. The

divergence between guilt and shame societies seems to be a natural outcome of the

distinct adaptive advantages of shame and guilt, as predicted from simulating shame in

virtual societies (21). These simulations showed that shame, together with pro-social

punishment and social cooperation, produce fluctuating dynamics of social cooperation,

achieving long periods where the populations stabilizes pro-social behavior interspersed

with periods where selfish behavior predominates. Although shamelessness could in

theory out-evolve shamefulness, empirical evidence suggest otherwise. There is

overwhelming evidence that cooperation is often more successful in evolution than

confrontation (see 20, 22, 34, 44, for example) suggesting that shamelessness, good for

confrontation, is not likely to out-evolve shamefulness which is favors cooperation.

The data presented here seems to be consistent with this view. Some societies

place more importance on guilt than on shame, but the large majority does the inverse.

A few societies have a concept of shame that is indistinguishable from fear,

embarrassment or guilt, whereas others separate these concepts very clearly. But all

societies know what shame is when they see it.

We considered this work to be a preliminary exploration that contributes to open

new windows into the search for the evolution of emotions. The study of shame and

guilt offers a good access to study the interaction between biological and cultural

evolution. Few cognitive features are so related to our social instinct as shame, thus, it

is astonishing that we know so little about shame. More extensive interdisciplinary

analyses including linguistic studies, finer anthropological synthesis of the literature,

neuroethology and other disciplines, should help improve our insight into the cognition

behind emotions and its evolution.

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Andrews) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.43. Wierzbicka, A. Emotions across languages and cultures: Diversity and

Universals. Paris: Cambridge University Press. 1999.44. Wilson, E.O. The Social Conquest of Earth. Norton $ Co. Ltd. London, 2012. 45. Wong, Y., Tsai, J. Cultural Models of Shame and Guilt. In J.Tracy, R. Robinson

& J. Tangney (Eds) Handbook of Self-Conscious Emotions, 210-223. New York,

NY, Guilford Press, 2007.

Acknowledgements. We thank anonymous referees for helpful detailed comments and

the National Science Foundation and the Leakey Foundation for financial support for the

work with the Sanema and the Fundación La Salle for access to their library.

Figure 1. Synonymous as reported by Google Translate in 2013

shame guilt pain embarrassment fear

Afrikaans skande skuld pyn verleentheid vrees

Albanianturpturpërimçnderim

fajveprim fajshëm

dhimbjedhembjemundimvuajtjedëshpërimofshamëndëshkim

sikletvështirësitelashtelendisjezorçoroditjeturbullimngatërrim

frikërrezikshqetësim

Arabic

عارالخجلخجلخزيحياءهوانمصدر خزيعار خزيارتباك

متهمةمعصيةذنب إثم

ألمالموجععناءحزنأسىعقوبةجهد

ارتباكحيرةعائقمشاكل مالية

خوفخشيةخطر

Armenian

ամոթխայտառակությունամոթի զգացումանպատվություն

Մեղքհանցանք

ցավվիշտճիգջանքպատիժտանջանք

դժվարությունծանր դրություն շվարումշփոթություն

վախահանհանգստություներկյուղկասկած

Azerbaijani

ayıbrüsvayçılıqrüsvayxəcalətareyibxarabırbədnamlıqhəyabiabırçılıqeyiblikayıblıq

təqsirgünahgünahkarlıqsəbəbkarlıqsuçbabal

ağrıgiziltiağrı-acı

çaşqınlıqsıxılmaxəcalətqısıntıtutulmaçətinlikxəcalətlilik

qorxuvahiməzavalheybəthəzərqorxu-hürküvahiməlilikzəhmxof

Basque lotsa erruduntasuna mina horretaz beldurra

Belarusian ганьба віна боль збянтэжанасць страх

Bengali

লজজঅপমজনশরমতরপজগজননকলঙ

অপরজধদদজষঅপরজনধতপজনপষঠতজপজপকললষকলমষক

ববযথজববযজথজদবদনজকষশজনসতকনলফশশলশশলজননমজননসিক যনতরণজশজররীনরক যনতরণজপরীডজমমরমযনতরণজদদনহিক দবদনজআযজসিদপনদকলেশদকজভআনতরমকজমড

নববরত অবসজথতমতমজননসিক নবহবলতজনববরত করণদদনজগরস অবসজনবববতকজররী বসনবভজনননববরত হিইবজর কজরণনবমশঢতজনজকজলঅনভভবনবহবলতজদবকলেববযঅনভভজবহিতবলনদধিতজ

ভযভরীনতআশঙজআতঙশঙজপররজযজডরদরকণজঅনভশঙজতরজসিঅধরীরতজখতরজ

Bulgarian

срам позор безобразие свян неприятност

вина грях закононарушение

болкамъкастраданиеогорчениенаказание

смущениеобъркванезатруднениепречканеудобно положение

страхопасениеужасопасноствероятност

Catalan vergonya culpa dolor vergonya por

Chinese Simple

耻辱

羞耻 羞辱羞

耻 侮辱

有罪

罪 辜

疼痛

痛苦

痛

疼

酸痛

苦

苦痛

酸疼

酸

楚

困窘

困难

阻碍

爽然

怕

忧

怵

忧心

忌

惮

懔

惶

怖

Chinese Traditional

恥辱

羞恥 羞辱 羞 恥 侮辱

有罪

罪辜

疼痛

痛苦

痛

疼

酸痛

苦

苦痛

酸疼

酸

楚

困窘

困難

阻礙

爽然

怕

憂

怵

憂心

忌

憚

懍

惶

怖

Croatian

sramotašteta sram stid bruka

krivicagrijeh

Bol patnja

stidzbunjenostzabuna

Strah zort

Czechhanbaostudastud

vina

bolestotravažaltrestzármutekhoře

rozpakyrozpačitost

strachobavabázeň

Danish skam skyld smerte forlegenhed frygt

DutchSchaamte schande

Schuld misdaad

pijnsmartleedlijdenzeerstrafwee

verlegenheidverwarringhindermoeilijkheidbenardheidpenarieknelpunt

angstvreesontzagbeklemming

English shame

guilt fault blameonus

pain penaltysorrowtroubledistressembarrassmentheartachemiseryinflictionlaborforfeitfash

embarrassment sultriness

fear apprehensiontrepidationnervousnessfearnought

Estonian

häbikahjuhäbistusblamaaž

süü süütunne

valupiinvaev

raskusedrahapuudus

hirmkartuspelg

Filipino

kahihiyanpagkahiyahiyapagkapahiyabaho

pagkakasalakasalanan

sakitkirotkalungkutanlungkotsama ng loob

kahihiyanpaghiyapagkapahiya

takotpagkatakotpangambasindakpagkasindakalarmabakla

FinnishhäpeäHäpeähäpeäntunne

syyllisyys

kipukivuttuskakärsimysmurhepiinariesakiusankappale

hämmennysestevaikeustaloudelliset vaikeudetrahapula

pelkohuolilevottomuus

Frenchhontedommageconfusión

culpabilité accusation

douleurpeinesouffrancemaltristesseeffortpunition

embarrasconfusion

peurcraintedanger

Galician vergoña culpa dor constrangimento medo

Georgian სირცხვილი დანაშაული ტკივილი არეულობის შიში

German

SchamSchandeSchmachBeschämungUnwürdigkeit

SchuldTäterschaft

SchmerzLeidQualQualenKummerMühe

VerlegenheitPeinlichkeitBeschämungBetroffenheitBetretenheit

AngstFurchtBefürchtungScheuRisikoRespekt

GreekΝτροπή Όνειδος εντροπή

ενοχήπόνοςλύπη

αμηχανία Φόβος ,φοβία

Gujarati

શરમમાવવવવ લમાવછન શરમનન બમાબત કલવક

અપરમાધ

દદોષ ગવનદો

પનડમાદદરવવદનમાદવ દઃખકષષ

અકળમામણગભરમાષઉચમાષમમવઝવણ

ભનતતતમાસચચચિતમા ઈતતમાદદઅતનષષ નમા ખતમાલથન મનમમાવ ઉદભવતન અમવક પરકમારનન લમાગણન ભત

Haitian wont koupab doulè anbarasman pè

Hebrew

בושהחרפהכלימהקלוןבזיוןבשתשמצהגנאיבשת פניםבוזגנויקיקלוןדראון

אשמהאשםחטאחובה

כאבמכאובעצבחבלמחושכאיבהדאבוןלבטמזור

מבוכה

פחדחששאימהמוראיראהדאגהאימתהבעתהדחילהמגורה

Hindi

शररलजजजलजजअपरजनबदनजरमशररमदगमबबइजजजतमचचिढ

अपरजधपजपजजररपजतकदजषषटतज

ददरपमडजकषषटवबदनजववयथजददडकलबशवयदतरणज

उलजजव

उलझबडज

डरभवयआशदकजचचिदतजझझझकशदकजतरजससदतरजसखखौफररोबझझकसदवबगखषटकज

Hungarianszégyen gyalázat

bűnösség vétkesség vétek

fájdalomszenvedésvajúdás

zavarfeszengés

félelem aggódás

Icelandic skömm sekt verkur vandræði ótti

Indonesian

malurasa malupenghinaannodakeaibankecelaanarang di mukafadihatsakit hati

kesalahanperasaan bersalahdosa

rasa sakitsakitkesakitanrasa nyeripenderitaankepedihanperasaan sakithukuman

kejengahankeadaan memalukan

ketakutanrasa takutkecemasankekuatirankegentarankebimbanganperasaan hormat dan takutgentaran

Irish náire ciontacht pian náire eagla

Italian

Vergogna Peccato Pudore Onta Disonore Obbrobrio indecenza

colpacolpevolezza dolore imbarazzo

pauratimorespavento

Japanese

恥

恥辱

羞恥心

不名誉

辱

面汚し

不面目

ひどいこと

破廉恥

はじらい

赤恥

うらいこと

有罪罪状

罪科

痛み

疼痛苦痛

苦しみ

傷み

悲哀苦心

憂苦

憂悶

受難

憂患

当惑

恐れ

心配懸念

虞

危惧

憂慮

畏怖

フェア

憂懼疑心

不安心

怖じ気

畏懼危虞

心労

気遣い

鬼胎危懼

危疑

焦慮

Kannada

ಅವಮಮಾನನಮಾಚಕಕಲಜಕಜ

ಅಪರಮಾಧತಪಪಪತಅಪರಮಾಧತತ

ನಕನನೂೕವವ ಪಕನೂೕಚಚಹಕದರಕಕದಗಲಚಅಅಂಜಕಕ

Korean

치욕

창피

부끄러움

잡된 행실

심한 짓

쓰라린 짓

분한 짓

우세

죄의식

죄

고통

통증

아픔

고생

국부적인 아픔

벌

통고

당황

난처

당황케하는 것

무안케하는 것

당황케하는 사

람

무안케하는 사

람

재정

무서움

근심

신에 대한 두려움

Latin

verecundiaruborpudordedecusprobrumturpeflagitiumobprobrium

reatusculpanoxanoxiacrimenpromeritumreatitudopeccatumcolpa

dolorepenasofferenzamalefaticatravagliocastigodoglie del parto

confusioni

terrorformidotimorpavortrepidatiometustremorreverentia

Latvian kaunsnepatika

vaina sāpes apmulsums bailes

Lithuanian

Gėda Nešlovė Apmaudas Akibrokštas sarmata

kaltė

skausmaskančiagėlasielvartasširdgėlabausmėskaudulys

varžymasissutrikimaskeblumasdrovėjimasissumišimassunkumas

baimėnuogąstavimasbūgštavimasbijojimasbūkštavimasgalimybėbailė

Macedonian срам вина болка срам страв

Malay malu bersalah kesakitan malu takut

Maltese mistħija ħtija uġigħ imbarazzament biża

Norwegian skam skyld smerte forlegenhet frykt

Persian

مخجالتننگشرمساریسرافکندگیفضاحتخجلتازرمعار

گناهجرمتقصيرمجرميتبزه

درنجزحمتتير

خجالتخجلت

سهراسوحشتبيمخوفپروا

Polish

wstydhańbazawstydzeniekompromitacjasromotaniesława

winaprzestępstwokarygodność

bólcierpieniebolesnośćboleśćmękaprzykrośćdolegliwośćobolałośćstrapienie

zakłopotanieskrępowaniezaaferowanieambaras

strachlękbojaźńtrwogaprzestrachobawianie się

Portuguese

vergonhapudorignomíniaopróbriodesonra

culpacrimedelito

dorsofrimentopenaafliçãomágoaesforçopesartrabalhopuniçãocastigodores de partoabacaxí

embaraçoconstrangimentoestorvodificuldadeperturbaçãoempecilho

medotemorreceioterror

Romanian

ruşineocarăpudoarescandalnecinstedecădere

vinovăţievinăculpăpăcatacuzare

dureresuferinţăchineforturipedeapsăefortpacostenecazostenealădurerile faceriisupărareameninţare cu pedeapsăbătaie de capcalamitate

jenăstingherealăbuclucbeleajenă financiarăstrâmtoraregreutate

fricăteamătemerespaimăîngrijorarerespect profund

Russian

стыдпозорсрамбесславиедосаданеприятность

винавиновностьчувство виныгрехвин `а

больстраданиегореогорчение

смущениезамешательствозатруднениеконфуззапутанностьпомехапрепятствие

страхопасениебоязньвероятностьвозможность

Serbian

срамоташтетастидсрамбрука

кривицагрех

болпатња

стидзбуњеностзабуна

страхзорт

Slovak

hanbaškodapotupastudsmolanepríjemnosťotravazneuctenieškvrna

vinapocit vinytrestuhodnosťzodpovednosťchyba

bolesťutrpenietrestotravaomylmuka

rozpakyťažkostifinančné ťažkosti

strachobavabázeňnebezpečie

Slovenian sramota krivda bolečina zadrega Strach

Spanish

vergüenzalástimaoprobiodeshonramula

culpadolorpenasufrimiento

vergüenzaembarazobochornoturbacióndesconciertopenaestorboazoramientoempachopanza

miedotemorhorroraprensión

Swahili aibu hatia maumivu aibu rädsla

Swedish

SKAMBLYGSELVANÄRASKAMSENHET

SKULDBROTTSLIGHETSKULDMEDVETENHET

SMÄRTAONTVÄRKPINAKVALPLÅGASORGÄNGSLANSTRAFF

FÖRLÄGENHETPENNINGKNIPAFÖRVIRRINGBRYDERIBESVÄRHINDERBETRYCK

RÄDSLAFRUKTANÄNGSLANFARHÅGARISK

Tamilஅவமமானமவவடகம

குறறமபபிழழ

வலல மன உழளைவ భయమమ

Teluguపపపపఅయయయయయయ

తపపపపుచచయమటమమరరువవషమమనవరమమ

ననపపపపుబబధ

ఇబబపదదచరపకకతడమటప

భయమమదదగమలకఅపదదళన

Thai

ความออปยศความออบอายหหรหความละอายใจความอดสสความขายหนนา

ความผหดตราบาปมลทหนโทษโพยความรสนสสกผหด

ความเจจบปวดเจจบความปวดตบะความเจจบแสบสหสงระคายเคคอง

ความลลาบากใจออทธอจความอสดออดใจความกระดากออธอจความตะขหดตะขวงใจความยอยงใจ

ความกลอวความหวาดกลอวความวหตกกองวลวหตกจรหต

Turkish

utançayıpyazıkutanmayüz karasılekeutanılacak şey

suçluluksuçkabahatgünahkârlık

ağrıacısızısancıızdırapeziyetazapdertelemcezaemekzahmet

utanmasıkıntırahatsızlıkşaşkınlıkparasızlık

korkukorkmaendişekaygıdehşetçekinmerisksıkıntıdert

Ukranian

соромганьбаганебністьзгуданеславанаганечесть

винапровинагріхпровинністьзавинакараність

більстражданняболісність

збентеженняутрудненняваганнязаплутаністьнерішучість

страхпобоюваннязляктрепетобава

Urdu ہے بات کی شرم جرم درد شرمندگی خوف

Vietnameseđiều hổ thẹnđiều ô nhụcsự xấu hổ

sự phạm tộicó tội

đaucơn đauhình phạtsự đau đớnnổi khổ đausự đau về xác thịt

không tự nhiênsự khó chịusự ngượng ngùngsự lúng túng

sợlo ngạisợ hảisự tôn trọng pháp luật

Welsh cywilydd euogrwydd poen embaras ofn

Yanomami

kiriikirihiwekirimaikirihipraikirihouno kiri thaino kiri thamoupuhi no preami

mayono kiriaino kirihiai

nini

puhipuhipeshetapuhi no preami kiri thaikiri ai

Kiriikirihiwekiritimikiririkirimaikirihiprai

Yiddish

שאדננדביזויעןבושערפע כאדנ

שולד ווייטיק רלעגנהיידנט פאדנמוירעכעד פאדנשרעק

Figure 2: Relation between the number of words for “shame” and for “guilt” as

translated by Google Translate for each of 59 languages. The line shows the linear

regression with its 95% confidence interval.

Af r

Alb Ara

Arm

Aze

BasBel

Ben

Bul

Cat

ChiS Chi

Cro

CzeDan

Dut

Eng

EstFil

Fin

Fre

GalGeo

Ger

Gre

Guj

Hai

Heb

Hin

Hun

Ice

Ind

Iri

Ita

JapKan

Kor

Lat

Lv i

LitMacMalMteNor

Per

Pol

Por

RomRus

Ser

Slk

SlvSpa

Swa

Swe

Tam

Tel

Tha

Tur

Ucr

Urd

Vie

Wel Y id

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

N Shame

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

N G

uilt

Af r

Alb Ara

Arm

Aze

BasBel

Ben

Bul

Cat

ChiS Chi

Cro

CzeDan

Dut

Eng

EstFil

Fin

Fre

GalGeo

Ger

Gre

Guj

Hai

Heb

Hin

Hun

Ice

Ind

Iri

Ita

JapKan

Kor

Lat

Lv i

LitMacMalMteNor

Per

Pol

Por

RomRus

Ser

Slk

SlvSpa

Swa

Swe

Tam

Tel

Tha

Tur

Ucr

Urd

Vie

Wel Y id

YAN

Afr AfrikaansAlb AlbanianAra ArabicArm ArmenianAze AzerbaijaniBas BasqueBel BelarusianBen BengaliBul BulgarianCat CatalanChiS Chinese SimpleChi Chinese TraditionalCro Croatian

Cze CzechDan DanishDut DutchEng EnglishEst EstonianFil FilipinoFin FinnishFre FrenchGal GalicianGeo GeorgianGer GermanGre GreekGuj Gujarati

Hai HaitianHeb HebrewHin HindiHun HungarianIce IcelandicInd IndonesianIri IrishIta ItalianJap JapaneseKan KannadaKor KoreanLat LatinLvi Latvian

Lit LithuanianMac MacedonianMal MalayMte MalteseNor NorwegianPer PersianPol PolishPor PortugueseRom RomanianRus RussianSer SerbianSlk SlovakSlv Slovenian

Spa SpanishSwa SwahiliSwe SwedishTam TamilTel TeluguTha ThaiTur TurkishUkr UkrainianUrd UrduVie VietnameseWel WelshYid YiddishYan Yanomami

Figure 3: Principal component analysis built by comparing the number of words for

“shame” and “guilt” and their ratio, as translated by Google Translate for each of 59

languages. Languages indicated in colors belong to the same language family.

Projection of the cases on the f actor-plane ( 1 x 2)

Cases with sum of cosine square >= 0.00

Activ e

Af r

Alb

Ara

Arm

Aze

BasBel

Ben

Bul CatChiS

Chi Cro

Cze

DanDut

Eng

EstFil

Fin

Fre GalGeo

Ger Gre

GujHai

Heb

Hin Hun

Ice

Ind

Iri

Ita

Jap

Kan

Kor

Lat

Lv i

Lit

MacMalMteNor

Per

Pol

PorRom

Rus

Ser

Slk

Slv

Spa

Swa

SweTam

TelTha

Tur

Ucr

UrdVie

Wel

Y id

-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3

Factor 1: 59.18%

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

4

5

Fac

tor

2:

37.8

7%

Af r

Alb

Ara

Arm

Aze

BasBel

Ben

Bul CatChiS

Chi Cro

Cze

DanDut

Eng

EstFil

Fin

Fre GalGeo

Ger Gre

GujHai

Heb

Hin Hun

Ice

Ind

Iri

Ita

Jap

Kan

Kor

Lat

Lv i

Lit

MacMalMteNor

Per

Pol

PorRom

Rus

Ser

Slk

Slv

Spa

Swa

SweTam

TelTha

Tur

Ucr

UrdVie

Wel

Y id

Figure 1: Synonyms in different languages as given by Google Translate in August 2012, except

for Yanomami (31)

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